


Rewind, Start Again

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Guy realizes that everyone chooses their own path, and that loving someone sometimes means you have to let them go. (Set after 3x06 "Do You Love Me", departs from canon after that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewind, Start Again

_The Sheriff is dead, long live the Sheriff_ , Guy thinks grimly. He wants to feel satisfied, wants to feel triumphant and victorious, but all he senses is numbness. 

Too little, too late. Much too late. If he had been willing to kill Vaizey before, when Marian asked him to... He raises the goblet of wine goblet to his mouth and gulps it down, not allowing himself to follow that thought further, but his hands won't stop shaking.

Next to him, Prince John laughs at something Isabella says. When Guy turns around to watch them, the expression on her face is familiar, all enraptured smiles and wide-eyed adoring gaze, both utterly fake, the same look she employed at a much younger age, when she was trying to wrap her teachers around her fingers. It worked then, more often than not, and it's clearly working now, from the way Prince John takes Isabella's hand in his and presses a kiss to it before he gets up from the table.

Guy hides his snort and motions for a servant to refill his goblet. The room is almost empty now; it's just him, Isabella, and a scattered handful of drunken noblemen (fools, the lot of them). He doesn't need to look up to notice that Isabella is fixing him with sharp, suspicious eyes. Gone are all traces of the easy charm she displayed to lull Prince John into the illusion of her being his obedient servant.

"I wonder how Hood and his men got into the castle," Guy muses aloud, not turning to look at Isabella even though his words are directed at her alone. "Someone must have helped them in."

And then he does look up, quickly, hoping to catch a trace of guilt or fear in Isabella's eyes. He's disappointed to find her face serene and calm, showing nothing but mild curiosity. 

"It appears that way," Isabella agrees, holding his gaze. "How else would they have accomplished stealing the money, kidnapping the physician and murdering the poor Sheriff, all in such a short time?"

Guy narrows his eyes at her, trying to decipher her tone. He is certain that the innocent incredulity is fake, but he can't quite tell whether she only means to deflect or if she's taunting him because she knows that Hood had no hand in Vaizey's death. And who had.

"They're clearly getting more ruthless. The people need to be careful whom they support. Hood will prove deadly for anyone who associates with him and his like."

If Isabella recognizes the warning, she doesn't let on. She chews on a grape, nodding in grave seriousness. "It's a miracle I survived my encounter with them yesterday. I was sure I was going to die when they surrounded me."

Guy doesn't understand how Prince John could be fooled by her theatrics and her lies for even one second. Perhaps he's blinded by her beauty – and, by God, Guy of all people should know that no one's more easily led than a man in love – or perhaps Guy merely knows Isabella too well not to see through her act.

"That should teach you to be less careless in the future and stay away from them. So you won't be _robbed_ again," he says viciously, driving his point home with a glare that she cannot possibly misinterpret.

She inclines her head slightly, as if in agreement, but her smile mocks him. "You're right. I shall be more careful in the future."

With that, she returns to her grapes, dismissing him with a casualness that he knows to be more deliberate than anything.

* * *

When Guy finds Isabella in the stables early in the morning, preparing to ride out, he steps into her way. 

"Where are you going?" 

"Out," she says curtly, as if she owed him no explanation, stepping around him to approach the squire who's getting her horse ready. 

He grabs her wrist and spins her around. "Isabella, I'm warning you—"

"Let me go! Ow!" She futilely tries to pull from his grip, but he holds on tight, watching her struggle. "Am I a prisoner now? I'm going to the market. Guy, please, let me go. You're hurting me."

It's not as if he doesn't know it's a lie, as if he doesn't know where she's going and who she's meeting, and he wants to hit her and make her admit it. Instead, he smiles pleasantly and lets go of her arm, but not before giving her wrist another painful squeeze. "Very well. I'm coming with you."

She visibly stiffens and purses her lips in annoyance. 

"As you wish," she agrees coolly, in what he knows to be reluctant yielding instead of the submission it should be.

Isabella is silent and tense all day, and Guy isn't sure whether it's because he really thwarted her plans or if she's just angry with him for the way he treated her in the stables. She buys cloth for a new dress, a deep forest green that will no doubt look lovely on her. When Guy offers to pay for it in a tentative offering of peace, she tells him she brought enough money of her own, seeing as she planned to go alone in the first place. Guy grinds his teeth and follows her as she takes forever to go through cloth and jewellery and other women stuff they have on display, knowing all too well that she's punishing him for insisting accompanying her. 

They're back at Locksley at nightfall, both of them in a foul mood. He's been at her side all day, hoping to catch her at doing anything incriminating but only succeeding in being bored out of his mind, and the only thing that makes it all a little better is the knowledge that she probably considers it a wasted day as well.

Isabella, for her part, seems to be set on ignoring him for the remainder of the night. She wordlessly hands her horse to the stable boy and pushes past him, her back straightened and her chin held high, all proud defiance. 

When she turns her back to him, just for a moment he sees another woman in her stead, just as proud and as wilful and as beautiful in her rebelliousness. In the dim light, the illusion is almost complete, even though her hair is a different shade of brown and her frame is thinner and more angular.

It feels like a punch to the gut, and for a moment, Guy can't breathe, and all the irritation he felt a heartbeat earlier evaporates. 

"I'm sorry," he says, once he finds his voice again, and right in this second, he's not entirely sure who he's apologizing to: his sister or the ghost image of the woman he killed.

But then Isabella faces him again, and the illusion fades. 

"For my behaviour earlier," he feels compelled to add, stiffly, more to himself than to her.

Isabella nods silently, but her mouth remains a thin, angry line and he knows he isn't forgiven. It's a rare moment of honestly from her: her anger is real, and she deliberately chose not to conceal it behind easy smiles and sweet lies. He's glad for that, at least, even if he's convinced that his mistrust this morning was not unfounded.

Still, it's the last time he accompanies her. 

He never presses her again to ride out with her, and she never asks him. He keeps watching her from the windows facing the yard, watches as she mounts her horse and rides off on her own, out of the confinement of the castle, away from Prince John's roving hands and Guy's watchful eyes. She often returns after sunset, her hair wild and untamed and smelling of the forest, her lips red and puffy. 

She seems happier on those nights, less irritable and almost carefree, more _herself_. Guy bites his lips and doesn't ask where she's been and with whom, because he knows she'd deny it and they'd fight, and he's strangely reluctant to wipe the smile from her face.

* * *

Prince John's men make another attempt to capture Hood, and of course they fail, but it was close – or so they say. Guy knows it hardly means anything; he told the Sheriff that it was close every time, and it hardly ever was. 

From the men's boasting, he knows that Hood's been injured, but he doesn't think it's anything serious until he sees Isabella returning from one of her rides the next night. She's pale and tense, and rushes off to the physician to gather tinctures and bandages.

"I'm riding out again in the morning," she tells Guy, even though he didn't ask. "There's a girl in the village who's sick. She needs help, and the family can't afford a physician."

The lie slips easily, smoothly from her lips, and Guy wonders what happened to the girl who used to flush scarlet when she told their father she hadn't snuck fruit into her room at night. But their father is long since dead, and so is the boy he was, so he can't exactly blame her from burying the girl she used to be as well.

"Shall I come with you?" he asks, faking concern even though he knows that there is no sick girl. Or if there is, Isabella doesn't know or care.

Isabella smiles tightly in what is probably supposed to be reassurance. "You needn't bother. I'm sure Prince John has more important tasks for you than to sit at the sickbed of a child. I'll be fine on my own."

Of course she will.

"Don't you mean _King_ John?" he asks maliciously, enjoying her responding wince. 

But her voice when she replies, "Of course. King John," is weary and flat, and when she hurries away he doesn't feel any satisfaction at winning this battle of wits. 

He remembers how he used to pull her hair when they were children, and how she always acted like his bullying couldn't faze her, only to walk off and cry where she thought no one could see her. It always made him feel sorry for having been so mean, but he never apologized, and the next day, things between them would be the same as ever. Somehow, he doesn't think they ever got past that. Maybe, he thinks, it's time that they do. Time for him to stop deliberately hurting her. Time for her to stop pretending she doesn't care.

* * *

"So, is the girl recovering?" he asks in a deliberately casual voice the next evening when Isabella returns. It's past nightfall already, and she's been out since the early hours of morning.

For a moment she looks a little lost and confused, and he's almost sure she'll ask him what girl he's talking about, last night's lie forgotten in her worry. But then she smiles tiredly and nods. "She's better. I think she will be well in a couple of days."

"Good," Guy says. He's momentarily pleased with himself at how sincere he makes himself sound until he realizes that he _does_ mean it, and it feels like a punch to the gut that's so hard that he has to physically force himself to unclench his fists and breathe. 

Hood will live. He tells himself he only cares because he wants to kill the man himself, but that reasoning leaves the trademark ashen aftertaste of a lie.

"Good," he repeats more quietly, almost to himself. There must be something in his voice that betrays his surprise at the sincerity of his own reaction, because Isabella gives him a curious look. But if she indeed notices that something is amiss, she doesn't ask, and Guy finds himself absurdly grateful for that.

Before he can stop himself, the question he's been meaning to ask for weeks now slips past his lips, and all he can do is twist it so it's in line with her story and they can keep pretending they're not talking about Hood for a while longer. "You care a lot about her, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," she says softly, after only a moment's pause, looking at him as if she's waiting for something.

He doesn't know what to answer to that, where this leaves her or them, so he just nods and turns away.

* * *

Marian haunts his dreams. _You killed me_ , she tells him, and as her lips are moving, there's blood spilling from them. She reaches for him, but he jerks back, momentarily spooked, and when he finally rushes to her side, it's too late. She crumbles on the pale desert sand, and her blood colours it red. _I'm sorry_ , he says, over and over again until his voice is gone and his throat is burning. He touches her face, and it falls to dust under his hands. He screams her name, but there's no answer.

Guy wakes up like that: Marian's name on his lips and his body bathed in sweat. Dawn is still hours away, but he doesn't dare to go back to sleep for fear that the dreams will return. And they always do.

He's short tempered the next day, and snaps at everyone who's unfortunate enough to get in his way. 

"What's wrong with you today?" Isabella demands to know when she's sick of his abuse.

He's just about to tell her that it's none of her business, but there's genuine concern in her voice, and she doesn't deserve this. Guy closes his eyes and rubs his forehead, taking a deep breath to quash the wave of irritation at his sister. 

"Forgive me. I didn't sleep well."

"Ah," Isabella says, a single syllable carrying so much meaning. She gives him a look that says that she knows what kind of nightmares are plaguing him, and the idea that Hood has told her about Marian makes Guy _sick_. Because whatever version Hood has given her, it wouldn't have been not the story as Guy remembers it.

"You don't know _anything_ ," he snaps, white hot fury making him momentarily forget that he was going to pretend not to know anything about his sister's association with Hood. "I lost someone I loved, too." Lost her twice, in fact. Once to Hood, and then to the sword.

He half-expects Isabella to tell him that if he loved Marian so much he shouldn't have murdered her and, by God, he doesn't know what he'd do to Isabella if she dared to say that, no matter how true it might be. 

"I know. And I'm sorry for your loss. But everyone chooses their own path."

Guy grinds his teeth. "Don't you think _I know that_? Don't you think I regret that each minute of every single day, with every breath I take?"

There's a moment of awkward silence. Then, almost tentatively, Isabella says, "It's not you I was talking about."

It takes a while for her words to sink in, for the meaning to register in his sleep-deprived mind. Isabella is not saying that he chose his path when he killed Marian. She's saying that _Marian_ chose her own path, that she brought this on by herself. And somehow, that's even worse; somehow, that's almost _blasphemous_.

He stabs a warning finger in Isabella's direction. "Don't," he says sharply. "What happened wasn't her fault." It was his fault, and Hood's and Vaizey's, it was this bloody, messed up country's fault, the cruel joke of some malevolent God. 

He's already on his way out of the room when Isabella's voice calls after him. "I didn't know her, but don't you think you're doing her a disservice by making her into some hapless damsel who just happened to get caught in the crossfire?"

Guy closes his eyes and forces himself to keep walking.

* * *

When the guards come banging on his door, he thinks there's an attack on the castle. He expects an enemy army before the gates, Prince John slain in his sleep, or Hood having emptied the treasury. 

He doesn't expect to find Isabella lying on the dirty ground of the stables, people gathering around her as a panicking stable boy tries to steady a wild horse that keeps kicking out at everyone coming close. 

Guy draws his sword and the horse falls with one swift blow. The stable boy is crying out. Isabella lies still, her eyes closed, her face pale, her breath barely there. When Guy cradles her head in his hands, her hair feels damp and his fingers come away coated red. He stares at his bloodstained hands like it's someone else's, like it's a foreign, dangerous creature.

Someone must have called the court physician, because he's at their side in an instant, trying to pull Guy away from his sister.

"Save her," he says, hoarsely. "Save her or, by God, I will tear you apart limb from limb."

The man flinches and hurries to assure Guy that he'll do his best, but Guy barely listens, looking at Isabella's motionless body, her hair spread out around her face like a dark halo. The ground underneath her is pale and sandy, and the sense of _déjà vu_ chokes Guy.

* * *

He thought he had already lost everything, that there was nothing else worth living for. But sitting at her bedside and watching her still, pale form, he knows he was wrong and he finds himself praying to a God he thought he didn't believe in anymore.

* * *

"Hood!"

The echo of Guy's voice carries into the forest, sounding hollow and strained. There's no reply, and it just figures that Hood, who's usually around every corner Guy turns, is being elusive today of all days.

" _Hood!_ " he bellows again, and before the word is out of his mouth, he feels the tip of a sword between his shoulder blades. All it would take is one thrust and he'd be dead. Not that he thinks Hood will kill him like this, a sword in the back without giving Guy a chance to defend himself, not if Guy won't give him good reason to.

He raises his arms gingerly and slowly turns to face his nemesis. The news he has to deliver... he'd rather not share it when there's a sword ready to make the killing blow.

"Gisborne. What brings you out here?" Hood asks, his smirk annoyingly cocky even as the sword is lowered a fraction. "I didn't know we had a date."

There is no good way of saying this. He doesn't want to say this at all, doesn't want to be here when he should be at Isabella's bedside. But if she were conscious, Isabella would want Hood to know, and there's no one else who can tell him but Guy. So he takes a breath and speaks.

"There was an accident," he begins. He finds himself slammed backwards against a tree before he even finishes the sentence, and Hood's blade is digging into his throat. 

There's something wild and mad in Hood's eyes, a man on the verge of snapping and not caring who he's going to take down with him.

"What happened? What did you do to her? I told her you –" 

Guy doesn't want to hear what Hood told Isabella about him, nor does he wish to wait until Hood cuts his throat in blind fury, so he cuts him off.

"I didn't do anything," he forces out between clenched teeth, mindful of the sharp edge of the blade cutting shallowly into his skin. As much as he wants to be indignant and angry at the accusation, he knows he doesn't exactly have the moral high ground. Not after what he did. Not after Marian. "She fell from her horse. They say— The physicians say she might not make it."

He can see the exact moment the words sink in. The sword at his throat doesn't waver, but the look in Hood's eyes changes, anger bleeding out, replaced by something that looks even more wild and unsettled, and for a moment, Guy thinks Hood is going to lose it, steeling himself for the cut of the blade.

But then, the sword is gone, and Hood takes a step back, running a shaky hand over his face, struggling with his composure.

"Take me to her," he demands at last, after what feels like a small eternity, and Guy finally dares to move. 

He takes a hooded cloak from his saddlebag and throws it at Hood. "Wear this."

Hood takes the cloak and wraps it around himself, but he makes no move to get on the horse, frowning at Guy with narrowed eyes. "How do I know this is not a trap and you're not just trying to lure me back to Nottingham?"

"Yes, my cunning plan was to come here and let you hold a sword to my throat," Guy bites back, sarcasm sharp as a dagger. "I don't care what you think, Hood. Come with me, or don't. It's all the same to me." 

It's a lie, of course. He didn't come here for Hood's sake, but for Isabella's, because she'd want Hood at her side. But if Hood doesn't get that, Guy has no time to stand in the forest and quibble with him over whether or not they can trust each other, not while his sister might be _dying_ at home.

They stare at each other. After a long moment, when Guy is almost prepared to ride off without him, Hood finally nods and mounts the horse behind him.

"Alright, let's go then."

"Hold on," he says, and digs his heels into the horse's sides.

Hood's hands are fisting the garment of his jacket uncomfortably, and Guy knows that if he looked down, the knuckles would be as white as his own while his fingers clench tightly on the reins.

* * *

He introduces Hood as another physician he brought in to cure his sister, and no one dares to question him. They all slink away silently, heads bowed but eyes never leaving him, as if they fear his sister's accident would drive him over the edge.

Isabella looks the same as he left her, unmoving and as pale as the sheets of the bed she's lying on. Hood is at her side in an instant, reaching out to take her hand in his as Guy watches, hands balling into fists. It's all he can do not push Hood aside and strike him down for daring to touch his sister. He reminds himself that he brought Hood here, that he's known for a while that there was something between Hood and Isabella, but there's a difference between knowing and seeing it with his own eyes, and he can't help feeling like he's losing someone to Hood, again. 

Except Isabella is not Marian. And maybe, if Marian had been less impulsive and manipulative, if Hood had been less self-absorbed, if Guy had realized sooner that losing someone to Hood might be preferable to losing them to death and that loving someone wasn't the same as owning them - if they'd all been willing to see things from the others' perspectives, then Marian wouldn't be buried in the sand of the Holy Land now.

Guy watches Hood sit down on the edge of Isabella's bed and brush a dark curl of hair from her forehead.

"When did it happen?" Hood asks. It's the first time he's acknowledged Guy at all since they came here.

"Early this morning," Guy answers, and takes a few tentative steps into the room, feeling absurdly like an intruder despite the deep-rooted conviction that it's Hood who's intruding. He thinks about adding, _She was going to ride out to see you_ , subtly blaming Hood for the accident, but making Hood feel guilty won't change anything because guilt _never_ changes anything, and he can't be bothered.

Hood doesn't look at him, and his hand never stops caressing Isabella's face, not even when Guy pulls a heavy chair next to the bed and sits down.

They wait.

* * *

An hour before sunrise, Isabella groans and sluggishly opens her eyes, and Guy is out of his chair and next to her at once. 

"How are you feeling?" Hood, on her other side, still holding her hand, asks.

Isabella frowns, her hand shooting up to her head, gingerly pressing against it. "Like I had too much wine."

She looks from Hood to Guy and back. "What are you doing here? What happened?"

"You fell from your horse yesterday. You haven't been awake since," Guy says, and then, before he can stop himself, finds himself adding, "You scared me." It's possibly the most honest, heartfelt thing he ever said to his sister, and he isn't sure if they're ready for that much honesty yet. If he's ready.

"Not just him," Hood adds, quietly. 

Between them, Isabella's lips twitch into a smile. She reaches out with the hand that's not currently being monopolized by Hood and takes Guy's hand, wrapping her fingers around his palm. "Good. I see my brilliant plan has worked out. You've spent an entire day in the same room without killing each other."

Guy's eyes dart from Isabella to Hood just in time to see him ducking his head and chuckling.

"I'd say it was a pretty stupid plan, seeing as you almost _died_ in the process." He grins at Isabella before turning his head to Guy. There's relief written all over his face and open, unconcealed happiness, and Guy sees for the first time a glimpse of the man Marian was in love with. There's surprisingly little bitterness accompanying that realization.

He has no idea how long the tentative truce between him and Hood will last, but for the moment, they're not trying to kill each other, and Isabella is alive, squeezing Guy's hand as he offers Hood a fleeting almost-smile. And for now, that's enough.

End.


End file.
